Mission & Values

Mission

Georgia Options, Inc supports people with disabilities to live in their own homes and to have typical life experiences.

Philosophy

We embrace the philosophy of supported living and work to create individualized services for each person we support.

Vision Regarding People Served

The people we serve are full and equal citizens who enjoy full participation in the life of the community. They have typical life experiences and exercise choice on how they spend their time and live their lives. People served live in their own homes, NOT in Georgia Options’ facilities. Their homes are safe, clean, and pleasant places to be. They live lives of interdependence, not dependence or independence.

Vision Regarding Staff

Staff are personal assistants, companions, partners, collaborators, supporters, and friends. They are bridge builders to the community and to relationships with other people, including family, friends, neighbors, church members, and other community members. Staff are models for respectful interaction with people with disabilities. They are our most valued resource. The people we serve help choose their staff, making staff members as diverse as the individuals we support.

Our staff has great personalities, respectful natures, a willingness to open their hearts and minds to different ideas, and the ability to problem-solve with creativity. They have compassion and an eagerness to serve. Our staff recognizes the importance of meaningful and fulfilling lives for the persons they support. Coordinators are positive leaders who focus on outcomes. The director keeps the whole organization focused on our mission. Support staff plays an important role in enabling the mission to succeed. All staff are ambassadors of our mission and are committed to the work and the people we serve.

Vision Regarding Quality Improvement

Georgia Options constantly works to get better at what we do. We do this by active listening, observing, and deepening our knowledge and understanding of the person we are assisting. We regularly ask the people we support and their families and friends to evaluate how we are doing and how we can support people better. We also ask ourselves: who is this person and how can I support him/her to live the life he or she wants to live?

Supported living is a journey, never an arrival. There is no road map and no recipe. We simply make a long-term commitment to the person we support and agree to walk with that person, assisting him or her as needed. We work out problems with others in the person’s life along the way and we agree to do whatever it takes to enable the person to live an active life in the community.

We commit ourselves to the highest levels of integrity, stewardship and accountability. We subscribe to the concept of servant leadership. The test of servant leadership is: “Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?” (from Robert K. Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader , The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership).

We work together as collaborators and team members to figure out solutions to problems. We try to create a learning environment rather than a regulatory environment. We know that we will occasionally make mistakes, but we accept our mistakes and those made by others and try to learn from them. We respect the contributions of each team member and we take the time to celebrate our accomplishments. Most importantly, we celebrate the life of the person we support.